The desire to treat Jesus with violence seems to have been confined to a few. But what are we to think of those many who are said to have believed on Him? What kind of belief was it? I do not know that we can answer any question of this kind, except as St. John answers it. He calls the sentiment of these people _belief_. We have a right, therefore, to assume that a spiritual power was acting on their minds, and that they confessed it. The visible signs spoke to them of that which was invisible. On the other hand, we are told that they talked of the number of signs which the Christ might be expected to work. This was the gossip of men upon whom His words had taken no mighty or secure hold. Those who can deliberate how much evidence ought to convince them, have never yet surrendered themselves to the full force of a conviction. But the chief priests and Pharisees were not the least competent to judge what were deep and what were superficial impressions. All murmurs and questionings sounded dangerous; they ought to be suppressed, if it were possible We have heard of their plotting against Jesus; but it is the first time that we have been told of any messengers being sent formally from the Sanhedrim to take Him. He appears to have received it as the foretaste of that apprehension which would take place at another feast; for--'_Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come._' I connect these words with the appearance of the messengers; I look upon them, therefore, as a prophecy of His death. But the further we read, the more we shall find that the language in which He speaks in this Gospel of His departure out of the world, is at least as applicable to His ascension as to His passion. His going is always a return. He is here for a little while; then He must be with Him from whom He came. I beseech you, do not pass over these expressions as if they were commonplaces, or as if you were sure you understood them. They are as difficult to us who keep the festival of the Ascension every year--who say every day, '_I believe that Jesus ascended on high_'--as they were to those who heard them first. Nay, unless we seize strongly the first words of this Gospel--unless we believe that the '_Word was with God, and was God_,' and that Jesus was the '_Word made flesh_'--I believe they may be often more difficult; that our familiarity with the mere name and notion of an ascent into heaven may make us less able to feel than they were, '_that no man hath ascended into heaven save He which came down from heaven, even the Son of Man that is in heaven_.'